AI Summary
5 min readA woman in Florida was arrested because cops were looking for a black SUV connected to a deadly hit-and-run. She happened to be driving a similar-looking car near the crime scene. Her vehicle was a totally different car. The arrest was a mistake, but it happened because a Flock camera flagged her license plate.
Flock cameras are automated license plate readers mounted on stoplights and highway boxes. Unlike older systems controlled by individual police departments, Flock’s system is easy to search across a network. The Atlanta-based company has placed over 120,000 cameras across the United States and is worth over $8 billion. Less than a decade ago, it started by selling cameras to a couple of neighborhoods.
What police departments are paying for
Each Flock camera costs a police department about $3,000 per year to operate. Fargo, North Dakota, spends roughly $130,000 annually on its Flock system. For that money, officers can tap into a network that tracks vehicles across counties and states. The system is designed to help find stolen vehicles and violent criminals.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:01) **The Flock Camera Phenomenon and the Central Question** - The hosts introduce Flock cameras, their explosive growth (120,000+ cameras, $8 billion valuation), and the core tension: they help find stolen vehicles and violent criminals but have also been misused for stalking and tracking legal activity.
- 2 (03:17) **How Flock Pitched Itself vs. How It's Used** - Journalist Jason Kepler explains Flock's initial pitch to HOA's and local police as a tool for recovering stolen vehicles, but notes the data is now stored for up to a year and used for much more.
- 3 (04:19) **The Economic Lens: Do Flock Cameras Deliver on Their Promises?** - Former police officer and professor Scott Morkas describes the reality of vendor sales pitches that often don't deliver on 50% of their promises, framing his study as an economic analysis of what you get for giving up privacy.
- 4 (05:15) **The Research Findings: Modest Crime Reduction** - Morkas's study across hundreds of jurisdictions found that motor vehicle theft fell about 11% in areas with Flock cameras, and locating suspects for vehicle thefts rose about 16%.
- 5 (06:21) **Complicating the Picture: Cars Are Harder to Steal** - The hosts and Morkas note that many modern cars have become harder to steal due to anti-theft technology, which is another potential reason for the decline in thefts independent of Flock cameras.
- 6 (07:01) **The Surprising Finding: Cameras Don't Speed Up Recovery** - The hosts are surprised to learn that Flock's always-on, always-scanning network does not actually make police faster at finding stolen cars.
- 7 (07:31) **The Dual Reality: Positive and Negative Impacts** - Morkas states that both the positive experiences (solving crimes) and negative experiences (misuse) are equally impactful and important.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.
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